Mike Riversdale

Doesn't time fly when you're having fun, it's been a full year of daily photos themed and I've really enjoyed it. Some themes were easy and some were a struggle forcing me to get somewhat creative. For the next set of themes I'm going to take the shackles off a tad and set a theme per month to allow more flexibility in my photo choices. You can see my daily photos in these two albums, all help keep my brain a little less wobbly : 🖼️ Mike's daily photo - From Then To Now 🖼️ Mike's daily photo - Themes For the rest of 2026 and into 2027 here's my photo themes: July: Manmade August: Destinations September:  Love October: Passion November: Buildings December: Wonder January: Play February: Entertainment March: Art April: Moving May: Experiences June: Nature

I've had a brief run of "getting off US servers", specifically for me that means mostly Google, here's the latest update with plenty to still go. As I always say, this is not about Google per se but about getting off US company infrastructure and onto either European (not UK), Australia(ish), or Aotearoa New Zealand company machines. And before you ask, no, I am not interested in self-hosting anything. Replaced - uninstalled from my hardware/services - the following Google things with ... Gmail to   Proton Mail Drive to   Proton Driv e Calendar to   Proton Calendar Keep to    Joplin and Cooked.wiki Tasks to Todoist ,    Standard Notes   Keyboard to Futo (Android) Chrome to    Vivaldi Calculator to    Fossify Calculator Authenticator to    2FAS Authenticator File Manager to    Fossify File Manager Ah, I've made a mistake with Todoist as it's made in the US and ones data is stored on AWS , can't always be...

7 times, 7 ways is the way to get a message through. We've had words, both mine and "AI", with the This Breaks My Heart article, now let's see what some images can get across. You're free to download and share the image and/or slidedeck.  Slidedeck: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WPcxBByOGkDHJB1g63l4-Qgx7MO2XvV2WKn0bzabcCI/edit?usp=drivesdk

This is most awesome from the Why Would You Tell Me That!? podcast, especially the qualifiers - which superpower are you choosing: You are invisible BUT only during June, July, and August,  You can fly BUT you'll always be hungry, You can teleport BUT only up to a maximum of 80 kilometres a day, You can cure all illness IF the patient is a murderer,  You can tell the future BUT only in/of the next 2.5 hours. 

Right-wing political parties and groups have a determined and well practiced playbook of controlling the media to ensure their own worldviews are embedded within the populace thus enabling their grip on power (and resources) for their own desires. This control has nothing to do with the society they live in but to ensure that dissent is removed from those that believe they are in charge and to wrap their own lives in a protective bubble-wrap of compliant people. You are the bubble wrap. Of course this is most obvious in the manoeuvrings of the US political right-wing and monied men, it's not hard to find with a quick search, here's a few that caught my eye: How the US right wing is taking over news media and choking press freedom By Edward Helmore, Sun 14 Sep 2025 The US right has appeared to increase its influence on mainstream media in America in recent weeks, especially in television news which has been a major target of the Donald Trump administration. The right-wing mainst...

TL;DR:  A warning that the NZ government is stealthily shifting the nation's "DNA" from collectivism to right-libertarian individualism. Led by the ACT Party, the plan cuts ~9,000 public servants by 2029 to save $2.4 billion, gambling on AI to fill the void. This hollowing out makes the state strictly transactional. I plan to vote for change in five months. ---- New Zealand is still described as a lovely place to settle, bring up kids, and make a long lasting home. The people are extremely friendly, the outdoors is spectacular, the entertainment is cracking, the culture is inclusive, even the shopping is great once one stop comparing it to wherever it is you've come from. It's why, alongside Monmouth in Wales, I call Aotearoa New Zealand home and have lived there since 1996 (with a few sojourns to Australia, where I currently write this, more on that later). When I/we visited in 1992 and returned permanently in 1996 it was to a place my heart fell in love with. Ne...

Lorie was my first, and you never forget your first eh, especially if it's a great experience, and it was. So what made Lorie so influential on my work life? I was 20 years of age and St Ivel in Swindon was my  first 'proper' job  after being a paperboy* or working as a waiter in a fancy hotel restaurant. It was both out of Monmouth and inside of an office where people wore suits, sat in pods, and stared at computers for a large part of the 8am - 5pm (not that I ever did those hours, far too early!) Being such a cocky little sod I thought I knew everything, I certainly had a natural ability with the work (programming financial and forecasting reports on a mainframe to splurge out reams and reams of paper for accountants to make sense of). I worked with a great crew, most were slightly older than myself but we were all similarly fresh faced, party-focused and in ti for a good time not a long time. Lorie was the boss. She was the Management Accountant, later I believe to bec...

Daily Photo theme catch uptime as we drift through Science and specifically Out there and In there . Hmm, I have wandered off piste somewhat, ah well. This coming week is Far away and then Very close  - actually, I'm gonna swap "In there" and "Very close" as that's what it looks like I did in my wobbly brain , all part of a grand plan that even I wasn't aware of. If you look at the theme post you'll notice that Science is the last of the listed themes, I will be changing the daily photo around a bit, more to come. For now, enjoy Out there and Very close .

Where AI can actually move the needle in the NZ public service? Let's ask Google's Gemini what it thinks - everything below is the response to the question above. ------ The push to integrate AI into the New Zealand public service is happening at a critical inflection point. With the current government’s mandate to reduce the public service workforce by roughly 14% (around 9,000 roles) by 2029 while tightening agency budgets, the expectation is that technology will bridge the gap. However, AI isn't a magic wand for shrinking government. It is a highly specific tool. Here is where AI can actually move the needle for NZ agencies, and where its limitations remain stark. Where AI Can Actually Move the Needle To deliver on the "more with less" mandate, AI must be deployed to handle high-friction, low-complexity tasks, freeing up the remaining human workforce for high-value judgment calls. 1. The OIA and Consultation Bottleneck Processing Official Information Act (OIA)...